from The Oxford American:

(Flower Drip / Mel Kadel)

I have a "wealth" of stories readily available to me via all the back issues of the Oxford American I own.

The ironic thing is, I still can't find the ONE story I fell in love with years ago. I am 99.9% sure I have lost that particular issue. I couldn't tell you the author or the title or anything important like that about it. I'm starting to forget what it was about, even. *Update--I may have finally found the answer*

So all four of these recently read stories are different--but they are all written by women and feature female protagonists. I'll discuss them in order of preference:

STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS
"Unassigned Territory" (Issue 32, Winter 2006)

"In the rural South, some folks don't appreciate a Jehovah's Witness at the door." This is the little blurb provided by the OA. Didn't really appeal to me--but then you get to the story and a line is written below the title, "It is no small thing to give someone hope."

Okay, I'm warming up a bit. I dive in and follow two young (24 & 18) women on a mission as they hand out magazines and go through a "deliverance of woods, creeks, and black snakes" which is a territory only worked once a year (if it's lucky).

Leslie is the older, perfect example of Witness while Steph is still making her way--she also sticks out because she belongs to one of the two black families in their religious community. "Imagine the odds of seeing a black Jehovah's Witness in the territory. That's Lotto odds."

At the last stop of the day, the two have an encounter with Phyllis in the small house with the red tin roof. Although brief the humanity found there has a huge impact on Steph. It is subtle enough that Leslie is blind to it. Interesting how that works, huh?

BARB JOHNSON "The Invitation" (Issue 66, Southern Lit 2009)

I don't know how to talk about this story--none of my words seem important enough to capture the story of Maggie & Delia and their group of interesting friends in a poor Louisiana parrish. They story opens with a dream...delicious with seduction:

"One leg is up over the worn arm, facing east. One leg down on the seat, facing west. The wide-open geography of this pose makes me fidget. It steals my words and fills me with an anxious yearning."

Life centers around the laundromat, it centers around the couple at the cusp of their 20th Anniversary together. But the fear of jinxing it weighs heavily on Delia and purposefully forgets to send out the invitations for the big party.

"There's real trouble in the world. The kind that can't be fixed. Love is not trouble. It is all we have to light our days, to bring music to the time we've been given."

The world of the story has real trouble. It also has love. It is a masterpiece, suitable for framing.

MEGAN MAYHEW BERGMAN
"The Right Company" (Issue 68, Food 2010)

"A ravenouse food critic might be the best companion you'll find in a quiet town." Har har har. Not exactly. We get to read the story of our narrator post-divorce, although snippets from her previous life filtered in.

Eastern North Carolina is the tasty place filled with three types of ham and three types of grits served every morning at Ella's. It's the local diner, with local charm:

"The linoleum floor peeled underneath the chair legs. An air-conditioning unit hummed and dripped in the corner window. There was a display of Lance snack good next to the counter tha tno one ever bought from, though the honey-bun package said BAKERY FRESH!"

You're there. This place. The details give the story an electric charge. And despite all of this overt beauty, the real heart of the piece lies within the heart of her:

"When I was younger, I would put my ears, then my mouth, against the glass walls of aquariums. I would speak to the whales, the sharks, the translucent squid. Remember me."

HANNAH PITTARD
"Rabies Do Not Talk of Love" (Issue 57, 2007)

Highly strange prose, missing nouns and qualifiers--we get to join sisters in a nightly, almost secret society meeting as they run wild outside and act like wild animals (complete with biting).

Girls acting like boys. This I loved. The special language between two sister-best-friends, also was a plus.
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~~J